CAT/C/75 page 41 192. A number of clauses in the country’s codes of criminal procedure are contradictory. Some acknowledge the right of the accused to entrust his defence to a lawyer or trusted individual “from the initial investigation onward” and, if he does not do so, to be provided with officially designated counsel, and specify that he must be informed of his right to do so immediately upon being detained. Another clause even acknowledges the right of the accused to communicate with whomever he wishes in order to arrange legal representation. 193. Other clauses, on the other hand, appear to acknowledge this right only from the point where the accused makes a statement to the public prosecutor. This is the kind of wording that affords the basis for denying the accused the right to counsel while in police detention before making a statement. This, according to reports received during the visit, would appear to be the official policy of the Public Prosecutor’s Office. 194. In order to ensure that the safeguard laid down in this provision of the Constitution is fully observed, it would appear to be necessary to include wording in the country’s codes of criminal procedure that makes clear, in terms allowing of no divergence in interpretation, the right of all detainees to have access to and be assisted by defence counsel from the moment of their detention, while being questioned by the police, and at every stage in the criminal proceedings where their participation is required. Detainees should be informed of this right, together with the right not to make a statement, immediately upon being detained. They should also be enabled to communicate as required in order to let whomsoever they choose know where and in what circumstances they have been detained. 195. Having counsel present during police detention, or knowing that counsel could appear at any moment, would help to discourage arbitrary conduct and ill-treatment and would enable the counsel to advise the accused of his rights, including the right to remain silent. G. Detainees’ confessions, the authorities competent to receive them and their evidentiary value 196. According to article 20 A, second section, of the Constitution, detainees cannot be forced to make a statement; only confessions made to the public prosecutor or a judge have any evidentiary value; even confessions made before the public prosecutor or a judge are void if defence counsel is not present. Article 207 of the Federal Code of Criminal Procedure specifies that a confession is a voluntary statement made to the public prosecutor, the judge or the court hearing a case … with due regard for the formal requirements laid down in article 20 of the Constitution. Article 287 of the Code repeats this, adding that the judicial police may submit findings but not procure confessions, and that any they did procure would be without evidentiary value. The Federal District Code of Criminal Procedure contains similar provisions. 197. The Federal Act to Prevent and Punish Torture stipulates in article 9 that “No confession or information made to a police authority or to the Public Prosecutor’s Office or a court authority in the absence of the accused’s defence counsel or trusted individual and, if necessary, an interpreter shall have evidentiary value.” Article 8 of the Act says that no confession or information obtained by torture may be cited as evidence.